001e for for okay [Music] good evening everyone I'd like to call this meeting of the dmouth school committee to order for Monday March 24th 2025 would you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all please be seated well good evening everyone welcome to the March 24th edition of the Dartmouth school committee uh we're happy to have you here uh just a reminder that if you have any any kind of electronic devices cell phones uh iPads or anything else uh to please silence them we also like to remind you that this meeting is being video uh taped by our own Dartmouth High School media production team
002uh head headed by uh Mr parate and we always thank the uh Dartmouth High Media Club as well as Dartmouth Community television for their partnership and as a reminder uh the meetings are rebroadcast on DCTV channels 9 on the following days Wednesday and Thursday at 5:00 p.m. Friday at 6:00 a.m. Saturday at 8:00 a.m. and Sunday at 2: p.m. meeting will also be rebroadcast on DCTV channels 18 on the following days Monday and Saturday at 12:00 pm. and Thursday at 3 pm could we have a roll call please miss kther Kathleen Amal here John no Nunes yep Mary Beck here best Coughlin here Chris Oliver here uh thank you very much uh we do have a public hearing scheduled for 6:05 this evening it was it was advertised correct Mr Kylie and Dr s McGuire
003uh so at 6:05 we will open the public hearing um in the meantime though uh what we'll do is if it's okay with the committee we'll take the approval of minutes uh out of order both the regular and executive session minutes of March 3rd 2025 chair will entertain a motion for the approval of the regular session minutes so moved second motion by Mr nun second by Miss Coughlin on the motion any further discussion J hearing none all in favor I I opposed abstentions one abstention motion passes four to zero with one exstension at this time chair will entertain a motion to approve the executive session minutes of March 3rd 2025 so move Mr chairman with the stipulation may be held until the matter for which they were intended is completed do I have a second
004second so I have a motion by Mr NES a second by Miss Beckwith on the motion any other discussion Jay Herring none all in favor I I opposed abstentions motion passes four to zero with one abstention noted thank you so leading up into the uh the public hearing for the FY uh 26 school budget um I will just ask that once we do open it in a minute um that if you wish if you wish to speak on the fy2 FY 26 budget to please approach the microphone here state your name um and we ask to please limit your comments to no longer than three or four minutes um in case there's a number of people that would like to um speak if you have comments outside of the FY 26 budget anything outside of
005the budget that's on tonight's agenda item it could be uh um the program of studies it could be anything else that's listed on the agenda that will fall under public comment so um and you can certainly um if you wanted to speak on both you could do that as well um but just know that uh anything outside of the the budget uh should follow under uh public comment did I miss anything all right I got about 20 seconds left just killing time and it is 605 uh I do I need a motion Mr Nunes I do J will entertain a motion to uh open the FY 26 uh budget hearing so moved sorry so we have a motion by Mr n Nunes second by Miss Amaral on the motion any further discussion all in favor
006I opposed the uh public hearing is now open for the FY 26 budget so at numerous occasions uh we've had the school committee has had an opportunity to um listen to the school Department's proposed FY 26 budget and now this is your opportunity um if you would like to speak on any uh anything regarding the FY 26 budget good evening uh Nathan Silva um and I I got to apologize to you guys because at the last time I came to to speak with you um I broke one of my own rules right I was a little distracted my family was was already at the girls basketball uh game I was anxious to get out there but I I always tell my teams uh never present a problem that isn't accompanied by a solution and I
007came up here and I told you all the reasons why I think you should vote against the draft budget uh that has been presented but I didn't tell you what I would like you to do instead so I'm going to use my time tonight uh to fix that mistake um but for all the reasons I've mentioned in in previous meetings or other Publications or whatever that you've you've seen me communicate in um I think you should vote against the draft budget that currently stands as presented uh and instead I'd like you to consider a budget that does three things um number one first and foremost and most importantly uh uh removes the funding of operating costs from the school choice Reserve fund um I think uh it it would be unwise of this committee to
008to spend another dime of that money until such time as as the town has a plan in place as to what we are going to do when that money runs out um I over the week weekend I read the article about what's happening in North Andover and I said a little prayer of thanks that our school administrators had the foresight uh to save that money when the S grants were coming in because if if they didn't have that Clarity of foresight at that time we would find oursel in the same exact position as North Andover finds themselves in today except it would have happened last year so so thank you for that foresight um but again I don't think it's wise to spend any more money until the town has a plan in place as
009to what we're going to do uh when that money runs out uh item number two and I don't want to PR pretend to be an educational professional but what I'd like you to consider is of the nine positions that are being cut on the teacher side uh evaluate whether or not it makes sense to for any of those positions to be converted to ESP positions or teachers assistants to help with the increasing class sizes that we saw from last year to this year and that we'll see again from this year to next year with that budget and then then finally uh what I'd like you to consider is a budget that also includes all of the requests that were made by the various schools uh which was um at one point it was going to
010be page 100 it was in response to miss Amaral's uh question at the draft budget presentation um but when I look at that list it's it's not it's not fluff that they're asking for it's not they're not asking for leatherbound books they're asking for the nuts and the bolts and the Hammers and the nails and pardon me I'm a construction guy but they're asking for the tools that they need to do the job that we've asked them to do and and I think it's important um that the budget that's presented to town meeting includes the cost necessary to truly provide level services not level funding because there's a difference there level services from one year to the next and I want to choose my words carefully here uh but I'm going to use the wrong
011words but I hope you will grant me the grace in my intentions in my words but but it is not this committee's job to prioritize the money of the town right we need you guys to tell the town what it's going to cost to run this school system um properly to educate our children and I think to to negotiate ourselves in consideration of the town's financial position is is not what we should be doing here we should let town meeting make that decision we should let the select board take their vote and the finance committee take their vote and ultimately let town meeting have that debate as to how we prioritize the funds in town but we need you guys to tell the town how much it's going to cost to run these schools properly
012so so that's my request I ask that you vote down the uh the the draft budget and include a budget that does those three things removes the school choice as a funding mechanism for operating costs considers additional teachers assistance to replace the teachers positions that we'd be losing and uh fully funds the requests of the various schools that were made over the course of the um budgeting process so thank you thank you Mr [Applause] Sila hi I'm jod paresi I'm co-president of the Dartmouth Educators Association um first of all we would like to just thank Dr sabba Maguire and Mr Kylie for being um having open lines of communication during the budget process um their transparency we really appreciate it um that being said we would be remiss if we were not here to voice
013our concerns in Mr Kylie's presentation he highlighted the population change over the past 10 years and the increase in key populations here in Dartmouth the high needs went from 29 to 43% low income from 17.5 to 30% and students with disabilities 12.5 to 21% in addition the student to teacher ratio in Dartmouth places us at 6 above the state average this means that we're doing worse than the state given these numbers we're concerned that the district response is to um cut classroom teaching positions and make classroom sizes um higher in the budget proposal for the 25 26 school year there are nine classroom teacher positions being cut the district has stated that there will not be a significant number of Staff losing their jobs due to the realignment of the positions and attrition while this
014makes it more palatable um since there won't be faces and names attached to all those positions we need it to be clear that these are positions that are being cut they're being lost in The Proposal for next year um I know I one of you asked about class sizes with those positions being cut and there was a slide that was presented that said that the average class side class size would be 21 um this average I'm assuming is determined by looking at the total number of students and then dividing them by the number of classroom teachers um it isn't that clearcut with the proposal for next year actual class sizes for grades 1 through 5 vary by school and grade level at dallo class sizes will range from 18 to 23 at Potter 20 to
01524 and Quinn also would be at 20 to 24 students per class I didn't include kindergarten because that's an unknown at this point the last point I would like to make has to do with the internal Shuffle when Mr Kylie showed the slide of the cuts at Quinn and what it would look like next year it left me very unsettled The Proposal was for kindergarten to remain five classrooms first grade would drop to four second grade dropped to five third grade and fourth grade remain at six and fifth grade dropped to five that represents years of internal chaos as teachers will be moved between grade levels to accomodate the different class sizes as students move for their through their Elementary School years um I'm just going to kind of end it by trying to give
016a real life example of what it looks like at Quinn many years with this situation at Quinn we have a teacher who started several years ago as a kindergarten classroom teacher the following year she was involuntarily transferred to second grade the year after that she voluntarily returned to kindergarten um when a new class was added last year due to the cuts we needed to lose a kindergarten classroom and shift someone to fourth grade unfortunately when moving people you have to look at certifications a kindergarten teacher could not move up to the fourth grade therefore that same teacher was once again involuntarily transferred back to second grade and a 12-year veteran second grade teacher was involuntarily transferred to fourth grade our teachers and our students deserve better than this um the type of internal Shuffle that
017Quinn will be facing over the next several years makes it very difficult for a teacher to hone their craft especially with the new literacy program that the district is adopting for next year training for that program is occurring on our half days this school year teachers will be receiving training and planning sessions for their grade level in order to hit the ground running for next year some teachers will be planning for a grade level that they might not even be teaching next year so this is these are our concerns thank you hello Renee Vieira the other DEA co-president uh going to finish up where jod left off so the first thing I'd like to say is that other Town departments don't have to cut their staff that we are aware of anyway other Town departments
018don't fundraise school choice is like fundraising for our own District the after prom had a wonderful fundraiser this past weekend that myself and very few of my colleagues actually attended but those folks worked really really hard why to allow our students to have a wonderful experience here in D our music program has to continually fund itself as well as Athletics Etc in June of 24 um the DEA jod and I were promised um an understanding a better understanding of administrative positions with um specific responsibilities relative to the district school and grade levels um because we've been continually concerned that there are more admin positions that have been added to the district and more and more la classro positions being lost well we received a sort of a grid that had um you know it was
019a flowchart if you will of positions but we really don't understand who's responsible for doing what and though it it is not our direct experience when we speak to something we like to speak it with Clarity and with knowledge and not make mistakes so I will just like to remind you that when we opened the school a little over 23 years ago now I believe um we opened with around 1260 students our Max here is about 1,300 we began with one principal and two assistant principles and at that point in time one assistant principal was responsible for grades 9 and 10 as well as facilities the other principal assistant principal was responsible for grades 11 and 12 and for curriculum jumping ahead at this point in time now we recognize that students have more needs
020we know that we look at social media and that godforsaken thing called a cell phone and we look at what's happened with covid we have one principal we have an associate principal that's in charge of curriculum and we now have two assistant principles one responsible for facilities and the other one right now duties I know include clubs and I'm not sure if that's also um other other responsibilities that go along with that what I'd like to add is 20 years ago we had two social workers and then three now now we presently have four which we fully need we understand however our concern is that standards standards change Massachusetts adds things takes things away but those of us who are educated as we hold our licenses we know we have to know our we have
021to know our craft we know our standards previous superintendent prior to Anna Riley and around the same time as her we had a superintendent and assistant superintendent it's our understanding as well as our firstand experience that the assist assistant super attendent position at the time dealt with evaluations PDP stuff employee records such as graduate credits um Etc when um Miss Riley came to um be uh we lost uh Miss Clark as our assistant superintendent a couple years after and it was decided that there was going to be an additional um directorship position and that was the director of teaching and learning and at that point in time it was Miss Janna McKenry um Mrs Riley introduced coaches at that time coaches were a benefit at the elementary schools they helped with curriculum uh we had
022coaches at the middle school but we had department head and Lead teachers at the high school department heads and Lead teachers now run help us run our curriculum Bonnie gford comes along and we recognize that Bonnie gford was one of had one of the highest salaries in town then she retired and no disrespect to the person holding the position but now our new superintendent has even a higher salary than the previous one and right now we have the assistant superintendent of finance that over the last three years has earned a 22% increase in that position for their salary we're not begrudging folks their salaries ladies and gentlemen but it can't always be on the backs of the Educators and it can't should never be on the backs of the students and without the people fundraising
023that's what it is and shame on us as a town I can say that as a DEA president I I can say that as a teacher I can say that as a mom and I can say it as a taxpayer raise my damn taxes however school committee not off the hook stopped settling for one 4.1% that doesn't help that's not Cola trying to get rid of a bus and I get it it's a big town we need the buses but fincom hangs their hat in a darn bus good God we're not asking for enough to run the schools I want to see the department of Works beg for staff as soon as you shut down the water in this town for people oh they'll be you know what to pay sorry okay for the last
024few years we continue to lose classroom teachers but it's not terrible because it's through attrition no it is terrible because our classrooms get larger we're not replacing our retirees for the last two years years we've lost nine nine last year this nine this year we can't rely on teachers to do more and then begrudge us when we ask for a cola that our members deserve Dartmouth has one of the lowest paying um towns in terms of esps and secretaries we can't get nurses because the subway subay is so bad which the district did recognize and raise up apparently not enough because we still can't get nurse subs and we have students here with critical daily needs we have a sped position at Dorth high school that we can't fill we know that teaching is a
025is a it's a job that people are looking to go into as a second career but if you want to come to Dartmouth okay salary is not bad throw in the health care insurance throw in what it's going to look like as a retiree and you don't want to come here as a second career you can't afford to do it and newbies they're going elsewhere for better pay we're not going to be able to replace our teachers and the more we cut the harder it's going to be to get them back teachers need be need to be open and willing to want to come here that's what we need to do we need to invest that lastly increasing student needs are not going to be met by reducing reducing classroom teachers and increasing class sizes
026and if I may ask a question do we have a separate um public comment after the public hearing or is it all wrapped into one this is a separate public comment yes all right thank you I appreciate your [Applause] time reader stage of life um hello my name is Zach tars I'm a parent of three girls in the district uh I'm on the school council for Dello a town meeting member and was on the strategic planning committee for the schools this past summer I really care about the future of this town and um I don't love public speaking but I appreciate the for we've been given here I want to thank the school committee Dr Sab Maguire and especially Mr Kylie for supporting the public education system in an economically and socially challenging time darmouth
027has done an incredible job of doing a lot with a little the leaders in this room in this town our public servants our Educators all workers in the school district from maintenance Food Service trans Transportation have given everything they have in a world that gets more expensive by the hour our public servants keep us all going but we're headed for a wall put simply the projected what's projected for the school's budget annual increase does not keep Pace with actual costs it does not keep up with inflation it does not serve our students it does not leave room for growth anyone living in the world right now feels a similar squeeze macro pressures from the pandemic hiring and retention have put a strain on budgets across the state not is here at home costs are rising
028if we don't act now we risk driving away our most valuable assets our leaders our teachers our police to find greener grass elsewhere we can't take on more service reductions in our schools as residents we need to understand how the town defines the red line what's the minimum number of Staff per student that will allow the maximum number of students in the class the minimum spend per student right now we're 27 70th of 322 in spend per student it's 13 below 133% below State average it feels like we're already at that red line I'm here to keep pushing for our Green Line a level of service we aspire to achieve with added resources and Staffing pushing us towards the goals laid out in school's strategic plan I'm worried the B the budget currently proposed addresses
029only a quarter of the problems our schools currently face a 4% increase forces us to choose between Esser positions service reductions unfunded budget requests Staffing to meet State averages as a couple people have said tonight these are really all vital line items for example to match the state's average a pair of professionals per student darmouth would need to hire 35 new esps at an estimated cost of 94,000 it feels like we're under shooting here I know this might feel like pie in the sky to cover some of these shortfalls and I don't think we have a magic pill to make it all go away but to me it feels more Pie in the Sky to pretend these issues don't exist we have to work together to solve this very real issue I think there's a
030much larger desire to support public education and frankly to support an increase in town service funding for all departments than what has been anecdotally discussed what's good for the schools is good for everyone darta citizens know that and want a chance to prove it I implore the leaders in this community elected appointed hired social leaders coaches business owners to be Solutions focused cognizant of the reality of our economic envir environment and driven by accountability to lead to come together as neighbors and to support public education thank [Applause] you hi everyone I want to start with saying thank you so much for all that you do for our students of this community my name is Robin delente I have three fifth graders at Potter Elementary my happy place my husband and I moved here about 10
031years ago with a gaggle of babies we moved to this town on purpose for the school system and we're feeling a little uneasy watching it Buckle right before our eyes our teachers are fighting for benefits that I feel like they shouldn't have to fight for and now they're fighting for jobs teachers in my world are my everything they're my Village they're big humongous parts of my Village and becoming my friends they're not just Educators in our community they're are community members they live here they have students uh children in as students in this community they go to the schools these are our people we've got to support our community I beg you to please fund our teachers protect their jobs thank [Music] [Applause] you oh I am tall enough I wasn't sure sitting over there
032thank you Mr chairman members of the committee um I appreciate the opportunity to share my perspective on the fiscal year 26 budget um and I also appreciate all of the hard work and dedication you put in serving our town um I stand here as a product of Dartmouth public schools um a taxpayer in town um a mom to a fifth grader at Dello school who happens to sit in a classroom I sat in 30 years ago and a classroom my mom sat in 60 years ago um which maybe is a bit of warm Nostalgia or perhaps really troubling but that's a conversation for another time um and I will admit the last school committee meeting I was in was quite a while ago um when I was the student representative to the school committee 20
033some odd years ago um but I feel moved uh to be here today because I really think that um Dartmouth has a reputation for investing in public education it's a reason I moved my own family back here and boomeranged back um after getting my own higher education and I'm concerned that the budget before us does not reflect that priority um so I want to offer a word of encouragement uh to this committee and to the school department um the school department in particular to ask for what you actually need to do the work um I would hate to see our school department put ourselves on sale um and carry a burden that's not yours to carry Alone um I really think that the budget should reflect our Town's reputation our competitiveness and our future um
034and I think the budget before is again expects our students and Educators to disproportionately do more with less our Town's per student spending as you know uh is below State average across um every category and that's a fact that's onest face could seem like a good thing how efficient but to me it reflects a deprioritization of something that should be at the top of the list um I think a budget is a statement of our values I think that's true for our own personal budgets that we have to create to run our homes take care of our families maybe spend and save for the future that's also true for our Collective budget as a community and a budget that eliminates staff positions increases class class sizes and therefore reduces dedicated attention for each student and
035insufficiently funds what school leaders and Learners needs uh asks our children to shoulder a fiscal burden that is the responsibility of us the adults in the community to carry the fiscal cliff we're facing as a town um is clear and it's been thoughtfully articulated by this committee and others um what's less clear to me is the plan for how to close CL that Gap um and it can't be to fund our students less investing in our students and schools is not only the right thing to do it's the smart thing to do and as a parent and a person who is deeply invested in our town I hope that we'll support a budget that's sustainable fair and reflective of the high standards and high quality education our community expects and all of our kids deserve
036I hope you know that you have a lot of support in the Community our school department so please ask for what you need and school committee I hope that you will listen and do what's best for our town appreciate you very [Applause] much hi my name is Elizabeth kavanau Murphy I'm a lifelong resident of Dartmouth graduate of the schools and a parent of a recent grad and a current senior I only have two months left with kids in this school district but that does not mean it's time to stop caring about what happens in our schools and this is an important message for everyone in the town I'm speaking up tonight in support of the next generation of families and students who are rallying behind this cause our school system simply cannot maintain the quality
037we've come to expect without a long-term Funding Solution we need to move away from onetime funding sources like school choice to cover annual operating costs I know you know this and we need to stop cutting what the district knows it needs before the budget goes before the select board and town meeting I urge the school committee to continue fighting for the best interests of our students which is undeniably what is best for the town's future as a whole we can't keep cutting staff only in the school department and we need to pay people what they're worth and that includes a reasonable benefit package that makes them take the job in the first place lots of people in the room tonight as I'm sure you're all aware are others like me who grew up here and
038came back to raise their families here we can joke about the fact that people don't leave it's true but there's a reason for it people like living here we all want a community that we want to return to Let's fund our schools so the next gener generation doesn't flee this place I urge you to listen to what all of those who are much more knowledgeable about the details than I am who have spoken tonight and vote down this draft budget and help us send a message to all Town departments and residents that our schools must be fully funded 4% is not enough we can pay more taxes thank you [Applause] anyone else wishing to speak on budget going once going twice time is now 6:33 and I am closing the public budget hearing Mr chairman
039motion to close the public hearing second motion by Mr noon second by Mrs am on the motion any other discussion J hearing none all in favor I opposed motion carries unanimously thank you all for your comments uh they certainly mean something to us or at least to me um I have no doubt to my colleagues as well and um we look forward I look forward to a uh discussion continuing so next up on uh tonight's agenda under um the public hearing is public comment uh anyone wishing to speak on any of tonight's agenda items um you may do so just the same idea approach the podium um if you would like to we really have uh commented on the uh the budget this evening but there's something that you know outside of it that you
040may have missed please feel free to step forward uh introduce yourself and you have two to three minutes there we go hello Rene again um I would just like to um comment on the fact that we're going to be looking at the program of studies this evening and for the last few years um we've pointed this out to um Dr sabba Maguire that there have been some changes uh to the program of studies regarding um expectations for each of the graduating years so senior class so many credits Junior sophomores freshman um so the concern we have is um that we have had is that there's some confusion as to you know what students might need at each grade level but more so when we look at budgetary constraints potentially and looking at Pathways um just
041what I don't know what's being presented this evening um but let uh just to try to keep in mind that we want to be able to offer students Pathways that are attainable that or and sustainable so that they're able to actually begin something freshman year and be able to carry that out through senior year um we know at the high school our class sizes are a bit different than the middle or the elementary schools because of the electives that we are offer so that might cause a particular class to run at 14 which pushes others at 30 or 32 um but you know the school has done a very good job um trying to offer as many electives as possible but when we look at Pathways and we look at electives and then we look
042at classroom sizes um with the staff that we have it's um it's just a little bit scary so I just wanted to put that out there for folks so thank you thank you [Applause] anyone else all right seeing noakers we're going to continue on the agenda uh at this time uh happy to introduce our new student rep to the school committee believe her name is Haley so welcome haly and if you would like to introduce yourself tell us a little bit about uh yourself and what's going on at darmouth high school yeah good evening everyone so I'm Haley um as he stated I have been um a member of this for throughout the year but I've unfortunately been busy with sports and extracurriculars so this is actually my first time sitting here um I want
043to start by saying thank you to the committee for having us do this again um it's been a great opportunity for us to sit and listen in and then get a perspective and get talk about it um with each other and I want to say thank you to the speakers again for just being able to speak out for the community and for us because while I do have a seat here not everybody does so it's good for it takes a lot of guts and we appreciate what you guys do um just an update we're halfway through March and closing in on quarter three for the next few weeks uh spring Sports have started which is excited to see all our um athletes come back and compete as well as new incoming freshmen um congratulations to
044Charlotte French for taking home dma's finest uh we had a total of 15 contestants compete and it was a great show very diverse and congratulations to all the uh people involved uh last week we celebrated World Language week Our World Language Department hosted different activities throughout the week and each day had a theme there was announced winners over the um morning announcements it's a great way to bring our school Community together to celebrate different cultures uh the New England Association of schools and colleges visited Dartmouth High School last week we want to thank Dartmouth High School staff for their hard work on making it a successful visit as well as all of the student Representatives that were asked to um speak to them as well uh two weeks ago members of the tedx presented their
045projects focused on keys to unlocking A New Perspective so want to shout out to all of them as well as uh Miss Souza and Miss true for organizing this again um AP art students had their show at the Dartmouth Cultural Center DHS hosted a blood drive last week with Miss Cohen and the students um from the health club so we want to thank them um they were all very successful events so thank you to everybody and and just a rem that uh dartmouth's theater company is hosting comedy Bingo fundraiser on March 29th uh so tickets are still bful for that uh via parent Square to purchase thank you for taking the time to recognize me and again thank you for all the comments to you teachers thank you for the presentation hilly any questions for
046our student rep thank you no you as always you're more than welcome to stick around but we understand if you need to leave thank you so much next up we have a uh Spotlight on kids best part of the meeting uh Dartmouth middle school I'm going to turn it over to Dr Saba Maguire and I am promptly going to turn it right over to principal Rossy who I see I know is this so exciting yeah we're looking forward to your presentation well good evening everyone and uh thanks for the opportunity to uh put the spotlight on our Unified sports program under the direction of Bill garer and with the help of many many others we've expanded Beyond basketball to now include unified botch and unified cheerleading uh Temple Mitchell one of our coaches has prepared
047a short video to show our programs in action and and after we view that I promise that I'm going to get out of the way and you can hear from our players and our coaches and get a better understanding of the positive impact this program has had on DMS and uh it's just a program we are incredibly proud of but before we do that I do want to put a plug in for Once Upon a mattress that will be uh performing April 11th and 12th at the Dartmouth middle school so please come on out Mr bernado and the cast have been working very very hard to give us a good show first [Music] let's get fire up keep high up [Music] we could uh maybe have Bill Garcia our head coach come on [Applause] up
048good evening I'm Bill Garcia I'm the social worker at Dartmouth Middle School I was hired there four years ago and I'm excited to come back to my community uh and what we're doing a lot of special happenings at Dartmouth Middle School we couldn't do it without the students it's really about the students and building an inclusive community well you know what I I let me say that it's about the community because it's not just the students we also want to Spotlight our amazing staff that have helped and really supported the program from day one I wish uh Temple Mitchell was here because she's one of the backbones of this program together four years ago we sort of reunited if we were high school friends and now we're working together with an opportunity that's rather special
049and we get to share our time with the wonderful group of students really promoting the word of inclusion it's uh something that we take very seriously and it's it's passion and we talked to the kids about being passionate and uh we couldn't ask for a better young group of students who really commit a lot of their time and effort to being part of this program uh without them you know we just uh wouldn't be able to grow like we're growing uh a lot what we do is about promoting involvement through Sports building those friendships a lot of my friends I remember I met them on the baseball fields over at Creo or playing the football at uh bwood Park but that's where a lot of those relationships are built and then these students have gone
050beyond and above and beyond and they really live the message of inclusion and without them you know uh just helps they help push the the message forward and it's not just about sports we've included the program to go beyond that and it's working into the hallways it's in the classrooms uh just this past week we had our first unified basketball game against Westport and uh you know we have 13 14 students on the basketball team we've expanded we I tried to put together cheerleading squad last year and it's more than tripled this year and uh from day one in September every time I ran into Olivia in the hallways she'd ask me when are we cheering when when are we doing chering again so she helped drive to make sure that it was bigger and
051better than it was last year so they definitely contribute to to driving this bus um so it we have 13 14 students on the basketball team 17 cheerleaders we've increased we've had more staff involved this year than ever before uh we've had staff members volunteering to monitor cheerleading help move that forward we had staff members volunteer to help make posters it uh after school one of the after school activities arts and crafts they took a handful of posters so that the students in that activity can kind of help make the posters it gave them exposure to what it was for they became attached to the to the game uh at the game on Friday we had over 300 students in the stands uh and it just keeps building from year to year this is our
052fourth time holding uh a unified basketball game on the courts of dmouth Middle School four years ago Mr Rossi said you know what Mr Garcia that's the first time that that gym has held a competition since uh the high school closed so we're we're opening up the community we're involved with other agencies other schools uh the clip there showed unified bot which we hope hosted a special event against the dmouth police department uh in every year the unified Bachi wraps up with uh actually all our UniFi Seasons end with the staff participating in each year list and list of Staff members that get involved keeps growing they've been the backbone of helping us kind of support this this initiative we have some uh we haven't really done any external fundraisers we kind the staff have
053kind of helped financially support the program through different initiatives they showed some clips there we call it the half day cafe where on uh half days as a group we kind of do our own Uber Eats where we put together the order go to local businesses and they kind of help us financially and that's kind of helped support the program we've done a fundraiser there called puzzle pooer and that's something that the staff look forward to that Mr Rossy and Mrs deas every September say when's puzzle paloa when's puzzle paloa they're the two time defending champs that's that should be noted so they get excited about that and it's just building that community and the excitement and it's it's not just Sports it's about just being part of something big uh this past week we
054had a Spirit Week where we did a Green Green Day initiative it was the first time that Mr C's pal Pal's program was able to set up a spirit shop where they sold green items the week before they took orders they packed them and then they delivered them as an uh vocational opportunity for the students and it was in it was a break even monetarily but the knowledge and the experience for the kids was tremendous uh it was the first time that they were able to interact know they do a great job on Wednesdays serving coffee at the kindness Cafe but this was the first time that they could interact with other students and offer you know this the spirit shop and offer the interactions there and beyond that Mr C if you want to
055pass around the work samples absolutely and it goes into the classroom so we're bringing it into the classroom this is a work sample that uh the students who in the pals program broke down the sales they were able to count up how many items we started with how many we sold what we sold them at what the profit margins were so it was a nice practical vocational experience for the students as well so you know those are some of the things that we are doing and I could talk for the next 20 minutes but I want to actually open it up to the students because like I said they are the heart and soul uh and they really help drive this so with us we have Victor morenzi we have Michael Seamus Manny Pavo um
056Olivia senson and Addison ly we also have Bennett Ross but Bennett might be a little camera shy but uh but usually but usually wherever victor goes we know that Bennett's not going to be too far behind because Bennett and Victor have formed a really nice friendship and it it's apparent not only on the basketball court but in the hallways as well so with that I'm going to turn it over to the students if there's anyone that wants to join the mic or if there's question right thereis got it I did have my paper but on here thank you um hi I'm Addison lry and I helped in the learning partners program and I'm on the unified basketball team I think that activities and programs like these really do unify our school for instance I believe
057on March 15th our first game was against the wild Westport Wild Wild Cats the bleachers were full students decked out in all green and all showing support it was really heartwarming to see so many so many students cheering on our unified team and our cheerleaders of course in the Learning Partner program I went to bened sim class and this ended in trimester 2 for me a fall memory of learning Partners I think that really makes a difference um is when I went to the fitness room with Mr Leen our adapted gym coach and Bennett he showed me all his cool workouts and house strong he is or like when I got to see his Mini Ninja Warrior course that he crushed I can't believe they bring I mean I I believe they bring our whole
058school together and I hope we continue to support and grow these [Applause] programs if no one wants to speak maybe we could open up to some questions thank you Mr Rie so first of all thank you uh for the wonderful presentation the great video by Temple um what a fabulous wonderful program the Unified sports and it seems like every time we hear about it it's just continuing to grow and it's it's continuing to gather steam in the the fact that you're able to now you're bringing this into the classroom and doing some of these skills vocational skills it it it's just phenomenal it sounds like are you is everyone enjoying themselves when they're out there and and playing these games ah we have a visitor all right um so hats off to to you to
059everyone that's involved in the program and especially to you the my the students so great great job and it's just it's so nice to hear the positive things that are happening at Dartmouth middle school for sure so I I'll turn it over to any of my colleagues uh Mrs Amaral okay and I do this without tears hi B so handsome um I guess I'll start so I I was like a broken record I have a child uh with a disability um who who wasn't did not participate in unified but I am so impressed with the programming and um just we are very lucky to have support in the leadership at the middle school as well as just having Mr Garcia here um Mr Garcia even before working for the town was a champion um each
060year the special ed parent advisory Council would host a very large um resource fair and I became quite a rivalry in the high school level with the unified Dartmouth High School basketball team playing against the RO the unnamed rival each year uh during that event which really brought the community in um and I just want to say to all of you um you know there's a phrase in the disability Community more alike than different um and um I just want you to know the difference that you make in breaking a barrier because not everybody is comfortable figuring out how to communicate with a classmate that might not be able to speak might use augmentative device might have some trouble running as fast as you um but by being a leader and stepping into the roles
061that you've stepped into all of you you're learning from one another uh you're breaking barriers for other students to recognize that all students are more alike than different uh you're making a difference to those siblings I've got two of them at home who might not have joined the unified but boy do you bring Pride to them to know that you care about someone who's like their brother or sister sister at home um so I hope you continue I hope you join the high school continue with the middle school with all of the amazing programs that are happening with unified that you continue um because it's all about I made myself a little notes and of course it disappears you know it starts off with just having fun it becomes something that's familiar you get to
062know one another um and then all of a sudden you realize that you have something in common um and the goal here is you know education the goal of education is to prepare us uh to live out in society as a community um and when we can do that uh by seeing ourselves and other people that may be different or have different needs than us uh will set you up for Success throughout School throughout College trades jobs Church everything that um you will encounter you're better off for having participated in such an activity and learning that you're all more alike than different so I applaud you um and I appreciate your time tonight and I look forward to everything that has to come in the near you know in the future thank you sorry and
063I'm supposed to follow that passionate no problem nice job uh congratulations to everyone uh uh I've watched on DCTV uh when the high school has had certain events uh with Unified sports and they're always enjoyable to uh not only to watch you know the students but the helpers uh perform and play and help them out and such so I say thank you for taking time out of your everybody's got busy schedules but what you do to help make everyone else's life just a little bit better says a lot and I congratulate and I thank you for that and I don't know if I could add much to my colleagues to my right um who said it so well other than I think um you you've had this opportunity to do two things uh learn about
064teamwork and learn about leadership and those are two really important important life skills and I think as Mrs Amaral said I think you've learned that fun often turns into something more meaningful and so I applaud you for looking for those meaningful things to do and I hope you will continue to do that as you progress through um your school years with us I'm very proud of um of you all um and proud to be a member of this community um so thank you very much and I really can't say it better than my colleagues so I won't belabor it but I am also proud of you and proud of your your role modeling and um inclusive community thank you for sharing how about a big round of applause [Applause] for just want to thank Mr
065Rossy and Dr middle school thank you very much thank you everyone thank you thank you thank you thank you I don't if they want to take the their data you have some data oh yeah Mr Rossy some important data about sales thank you sir awesome thank you what a fabulous presentation uh next up under uh presentations uh DHS program of studies Dr Sab Maguire yep and I see Mr Shay and Mr Silver making their way to the podium um I know they've prepared a presentation for you this evening and um I hope that it clearly uh demonstrates what the expectations are are here at Dartmouth High School for our students who are um I would say I would say something that H that I think became clear when the mcast test went away as a
066graduation requirement as a CD and it's that Dartmouth High School's program of studies is one that the state actually holds up as an Exemplar exemplary programming path so with that we'll hear from um Mr Shay and Mr Silva yeah talk about falling The Beatles right or like Taylor Swift eror I'm not as engaging as that I apologize to start um so this is our program of studies um we're very very proud of this document that we've presented to you um I I do have to thank Bridget for all of the hard work that she's put into it's een hours een revisions I I I don't even know the number of revisions we've at so um and it's it's count countless meetings with lead teachers and and going back and and really taking in the ear
067of the commun of of our own Community within about what what is best for the students at Dartmouth so I just want to say thank you um just so you know um it was designed with the Strategic plan in mind and we want to be mindful of that and and we really are proud of the Strategic plan and we're trying to do everything with that in in as we move forward um just a quick overview um there's been adjust it's really been to make it user friendly you'll notice at the end there is a subsection for our incoming freshman it takes all of the documents and makes it very succinct for our just our freshmen um we really want to support that transition you're going to hear a lot about supporting the transition of our
068freshman throughout but really that whole subsection is really just to take out all of the other verbiage that might our students might get lost that really don't understand what a program of studies is as opposed to you're taking this class next year or you're taking this class in next year when we when we start putting in choice and and which is great in student voice that's phenomenal but sometimes our freshmen we really want to support them so the last pages are are really designed for our our freshman as they as they transition into us um and it really it is it's designed to be user friendly whether this is your first child or your fourth child you should be able to be able to access this at the same level of understanding um we do
069want to highlight some documents some stuff that is in the document though that is has not changed but we really want you to understand why we put it in there in the reasoning behind it um academic probation is different at the high school than it is in any other grade level we are credit-based right you need the credits to move forward and we talk about what those credits mean and how you you transition forward and again with our freshmen what we know is is for every every class that you fail you're that much likely to be a Dropout so we want to really support our students as as they go through this and and we really want to make sure they understand that we want to stay on track for graduation and and that is
070our main goal we want to get to 24 credits and a maximum of 27 credits that is our goal all of the line and we want to keep you on thata trajectory as well um the other big thing is is the course level change we really want to understand that um students that have they do have options to change levels but it is really a short window and and and that is really one week after the term one report card after that you're too deep into the into the course to really take in a new class right you can't join a class like 20 70% in or 20 5% in because you you have that Foundation that you don't have underneath you so um those are two big important parts of it as well as
071recognizing some other parts of of the document is is our serial of biliteracy um Ross two month a month ago talked about the confidency determination and the impact of that there is still an understanding that students have to take mcast right the ballot initiative was designed so students could um not have the graduation requirement but we are still mandated that all students take um mcast starting tomorrow tomorrow morning our 10th graders you will be taking mcast um in ela and the the that's great it's great for us Hold Us accountability we make decision making off of that but also there are important parts of that is that if you want to get our seala biliteracy that's a really really great recognition on your diploma that you are now you're biliterate and that shows that you've
072you've done well in the ELA component of it as well as the foreign language component of it so we really want to recognize that also the John and Abigail Adams scholarship is another big component of that we recognize our students at a a breakfast for that that is a still part of it so taking the assessment is really important because you can earn credit towards that um one of the other big things is is I don't know area high school that can compete with our AP offerings we offer 27 AP classes so and we encourage our students then grade nine if you to really start that process right and you start that with like even just the AP not just I I apologize that but taking AP Computer Science principles that is designed for freshmen
073we really want our students to start really working towards those AP credits and and working that but 27 AP offerings and literally everything from music theory to AP Cal and ab and if you have a student that has taken Cal AB or BC you understand those differences and the difficulty it is but um we offer so many offerings for our students and that is when people people talk about why I come to dmouth high you can't compete with that you cannot compete with the offerings that we offer and and and that goes from everything from our UA every department has it our UA department has it just as much as our English Department our math and our science and we're very fortunate to have such a a vast AP offering um also um in in
074that same way we have our AP Capstone um which is a really nice um which is a really really nice um way to stand out in the application process for colleges if if that works for you that's taking seven AP classes that's an abundance of AP classes but you get understandings of research you get the understandings of statistical analysis you also get those like those comp and literature understandings as well it's a really rigorous pathway but it's a nice Pathway to offer for our students and again it makes you stand out and that makes that Dartmouth diploma that's already in my mind up here it just Rises a little bit more so you're talking about students that might have a seal of by literacy on their diploma and a Capstone you you in in a
075dmouth high diploma and and we're very fortunate that we are we can brag about how valuable our diploma is and what our students offer with that um some other things is is we do have a pathway of certification that's our Early Childhood Program we're very very fortunate that with um um paully Gilbo in her program our students get to go out every day on onto real life experiences in in child care and working towards it um I've talked to students who have graduated and um and when they go to college they have the opportunity to make like $35 an hour instead of minimum wage because they have the certification they also get college credits as as well in that pathway too so just having this little piece of diplom this little piece in your back
076pocket is really something that's really special for our students um we just updated our music theory um computer lab so our AP music theory it's a mini lab now um that's a big help through donors choose and Mr parate and in supporting that Pro program but we have a um it was actually spotlighted in neas one of the people said I can't wait to bring this back to my school and really work towards that so that was really nice and then the last thing is is our co-curricular activities um our schedule does get tight we have seven offerings five classes a day sometimes our students don't have all the offerings that they can they can make make into their schedule so we do offer some of our students the ability to take um when they
077take co-curricular marching band or concer band or orchestra and all of those they do have an opportunity to opt out of that PE class we encourage PE first and we really believe that as as a variety but if you cannot make it into your schedule this is an offering for our students that tries to make their schedules that are very very log very very Jam tight which is great we're really proud of that our students want more classes they want more and they beg us for more and and and again I believe in someone that had a dad who was a PE teacher I believe in PE so it's not it's not putting down PE but our students who March every day and work in that parking lot through all of the winter and in
078the spring in the fall in the summer they really are working in getting that that physical activity in as well so we really want to make sure that we understand that there is a difference that's really for our Juniors and seniors okay uh she was going to kick me because if I didn't say Juniors and seniors only I had to make sure I got that um so some of the High um and then our internship in dual enrollment program and then again Bridget really really focused on this year doing that freshman supplement that really focuses just for the Freshman so they don't have to weed through what does this mean what does that mean what is a prere what is all of that this is just for our freshman so we're really proud of that
079section as well of it okay so there are changes in the document though that we really want to talk about um one of the the changes is is that we noticed that the um update in the um school committee approved um handbook was when we switched over from block scheduling to our seven period scheduling there was transition one of the things that it didn't include is the bit program that we have added so that's our business information and technology that amazing program that Mr parate runs and we're really lucky to have that offering so we really needed to make sure that we included that as an updated version of that so this is the TR and Mr rier said like yes there is we we've really worked towards figuring out what that looks like and
080how that looks and we've really found a system that we think we're really proud of and and it allows us to get those computer science credits that we really we really believe in that mass core believes in that is essential to student growth but also allowing for students to take stuff like um take some of the business classes that we offer whether it's marketing accounting or any of those other offerings that we offer in that well and this still gives them some choice of um electives as well we still have three and a half credits of electives that's really nice so we follow the mass core standards and we really we really try to follow that but we still want options for our students we believe in voice and choice and again when we go
081back to designing this towards the Strategic plan student voice and choice is a big part of that and we want to be able to make sure we have that offering for our students in voice and choice um so departmentally we change made some changes um freshman year um all we've piloted for the last two years preap English our first year of the pilot um after that we came back to the table and said you know what we piloted preap 1 and we said you know what that's not riger enough for our dharm High student we need to start at preap 2 so all freshmen it'll be heterogeneous it'll be at an honors weight so if students transition in every student will be taking uh preap English 9 next year they'll come in with that it'll
082be at an honors weight for our students so there's no differentiation a student comes in two years later and they took an honors class they're not our students aren't penalized by a student's transcript that transitions in that's why it's at an honors weight um we are adding electives they will be run at a sufficient number we're not so these are offerings that we're going to offer if we have a significant interest or sufficient interest we will run it if not we don't we do this every year so some classes that our English Department really decided that they wanted to run year this year was Contemporary American Poetry at a CCR level feminist literature at a CCR Level Sports reading and writing that's really important one of the conversations we have with our English Department and
083Mr Higgins a lot is really getting our young young men reading and getting them in engaged in Reading we know that a lot of our our females are way more engaged in Reading than our young males so this is an opportunity and not saying Sports as a male dominated field there is a I'm a Yukon girls basketball I'm sad I'm not watching them right now at 8 o' so I want to be very clear on that but it is we are trying to Target to getting um some of our young males in there um Shakespeare in the art of Being human CCR and then dystopia CCR again they'll run at a significant number if we can run it we will not run it if we cannot get enough interested it um our bit Department we've
084added two honors levels um so broadcast production honors and programming gaming development honors you're going to hear this common theme as I talk that students don't choose CL classes sometimes because there's not an honors weight to it and and that's unfortunately sad but they understand the competitive nature of what they're at so they understand the competitive college process they understand the competitive of scholarships they understand all of that so we want to add some honors weight to some of our classes and you're going to see that on the next slide as well um so our desci our science um Department we're adding the preap pilot this year so as we piloted the English and we realized we needed to ramp it up we want to Pilot it before we push it Forward again so we're
085going to run pilot sections of our prap bio and then um in our engineering architectural design and Robotics we're adding sections for 1 two and three that are at the honors weight engineering is one of the most popular college majors and I can't tell you how many times students say I've applied for an engineering major I've never taken an engineering class at dmouth high because I I didn't want to have I didn't have the competitive it wouldn't have been a competitive transcript so we really thought it was really important to add those honor sections to it um this is just a um this is just a verbiage thing that we added so as you know the state has added a Civics requirement for every um high school so if you walk around the high school
086you're going to see posters everywhere about um talking about school lunches talking about um air conditioning talking about different things before Mr Kylie has been interviewed a number of times by students about the Civics project it's a really great thing because it teaches students to have really um like intense dialogues with adults and and really professional conversation so we added the verbiage that us2 is where that lives and um they're in the middle of that right now so it it's really fun you'll see surveys throughout our building you'll see QR codes on on the walls um for our our students to really gain surveys and information and and take that data and then and really put together like a report based off of that and that's actually a group of students working on that um
087and then um in the UA the only thing we added was that um we learned that um if you want to be an architecture major you really need to take um drawing too and we've that's feedback from our past graduates that are in those areas so we really want to say to students that if you're going to be an architecture major you really not only have to have some of those math Sciences you really got to have those art classes as well so we added that verbiage into the document as well um in our Wellness Department we piloted again this year um what we call ref reps it's an MIA sponsored I swear I didn't realize this that I was wearing an Mia shirt but um the Mia has really sponsored it they funded this
088for us this year for the number of licenses um there is a critical need for officials in sports right now um and there's it's unfortunate that there's not enough we if you notice sometimes we have to play on Thursday night for football games because there's not enough officials so you can play a Thursday night we have now by weeks in sports because of that there are not enough officials so this is a designed to get um officials this is actually a paint and Manning backed um Pro program as well um but it's really designed that they can do any subv Varsity so you can do JV and Below you could do Dysa you could do dyaa um it's really getting you the certifications you get about three certifications it's student driven and um it's a
089really great offering for our students as well and again it's in partnership with the Mia um Dr Baldin was in our school about a month ago we do what we call the car wash if anyone knows ESPN um you have the car wash where you go to different um things so he did a podcast he did the TV studio he really got he did a newspaper interview so we we really um had him in talking about it and he really highlighted the the impact of this and really it helps our students understand that transition of perspective of what it's like to be official and and you can see that and it really helps build that sportsmanship as well for our students so we really want to promote that even more um we kind of stole
090the model from Taunton as well and in their first year their students made over $11,000 officiating so we've we stole that model from them and and really trying to support that I know I speak fast I apologize every time but um I'm here for questions I'm here to discuss discuss any questions you have on this um I do want to give again Bridget a big shout out this is a lot of work that she does to put this together I get to speak and she does all the hard work so and she can answer your questions too thank you very much Mr sh that was a great presentation um before I offer my my thoughts over here um yeah impressive uh very impressive um I can't believe all the uh opportunities you offer the students
091one thing I was confused about was um uh the graduation requirements it seems like from year to year there's a little bit of change and a little bit of back and forth and can you explain why that is yeah so um when I came on we at right when I came on was when we added the bit department so we were trying to figure out how to add that really that computer science requirement that we want to have that is essential to like Mass computer science standards as well as trying to give students options and voice and choice and we've kind of played with the credits to tr try to figure it out so moving forward with 29 and Beyond this is where we we found that is like our comfortable zone of uh that
092one credit of computer science is not the only credit that you're you can take you can take more than that but we really had to figure out how to how to include this without taking away choices from our students and giving them options so we really wanted to make sure but we also didn't want to take away from the business side of things because business is one of the top majors as well in college and we wanted to make sure our students had those offerings as well okay and I I also love that you're doing the the student ref refs so the students will have an opportunity to make money or right out of school and even while they're in school and also with early childhood education I think that's terrific offerings and internships and
093yeah it's an impressive program we can do is get money in our students Pockets right it's gonna have to happen M be um just one question can you tell us a little bit about how dual enrollment worked I'm going to have Bridget slide in on this one so dual enrollment is available to any student that has at least a 2.0 GPA in the school we like to have the students take the courses on a college campus traditionally after the school day the reason after the school day is so that the students are able to work with our rotation of schedules and we can't have them missing a class here in order to go sit on a college campus we also have a requirement that if the Stu if the class is offered here in the
094building let's go English 12 as an example they cannot take that as a dual enrollment class because that would be taking seats away from our teachers here within the building so any course that we offer here at Dartmouth High School they are not allowed to take out a college campus and about how many students a year um do dual enrollment so it fluctuates from year to year depending on what students approximately right now for the spring semester we have about five students taking courses in the fall um there was a transition period with Bristol Community College and that transition was very Rocky um and because students fund dual enrollment courses so families are responsible to pay for those courses as well as books any types of fees on the college campus it is a cost
095to them so we have had since covid less students taking dual enrollment courses understood thank you thank you to clarify Community College is free for students with a uh with a high school diploma it's not free for dual enrollment students so that's the difference and the transition she's talking about is is I think bristell Community College found out mid August that every tuition was free so that's kind of the transition period we were talking about Mr Nunes before we hop over to you I do have a question over here from our student rep if that's okay hi so um from the students perspective I just want to make some comments um postgraduate feedback that's really great uh we really appreciate that because there's a lot of college kids now that give us advice they're like
096wow we should have done this in high school so to have like sports officiating or those classes offered is a really great opportunity um to also comment on that Sports officiating I've had really good feedback from that so um that's been great uh a question I have is is so for me I'm a senior um my freshman year our requirments were uh one credit of Art and one credit of computer science and I know that's changed with the program but I was wondering this might be a question for guidance but is there a place in guidance where they're going to like recommend years that we're supposed to be like taking those courses because I know when I sat down in guidance they said hey like this is how to efficiently get those credits over with
097or here's how to plan out your four years and not try to cram those credits in because I know a lot of students have that problem senior and I know that's a problem for you guys with the overabundance of kids in classes in these electives because they haven't taken it till their senior year so I was just wondering with those two credits that I had and now this 0.5 credit is there going to be some sort of pathway that you guys are recommending to these freshmen on when they should be taking these courses thanks hay so each guidance counselor should be meeting yearly with every single student so when course selection comes out not only do you do your course selection with you as the student your family your hearing from your teachers the guidance
098counselors should also be meeting with students and each individual student should have a four-year plan so if a student comes in in grade n and says I already know what I want to do I want to go to college I want to be an engineering major they start writing that information and then when they meet with them a sophomore year they follow up are your plans still the same looks like you're doing well and also during those times they'll advise ads two levels so if they see you're doing really well and you're only in CCR courses they might recommend you for an honors they might recommend you for an advanced placement course and to challenge yourself but through that all they're also going to be trying to manage the type of case load of courses
099you're having because not only is academics a priority but outside of Life of Dartmouth High School is a priority and social emotional well-being we have seen a substantial impact in regards to anxiety and it impacts students with course selection case load homework you name it it can continue to go on um so the guidance council is based on each grade level will be advising you right now it looks like you have a lot of electives why don't we add in your UA course your unified Arts why don't we you know take out the second sence elective and potentially add in your computer science requirements so that way when it comes to senior year you're not bogged down with nothing but requirements and you're able to have some choice and enjoy the last few months of
100your senior year I appreciate it thank you thanks Hy the one other thing I want to add to is um we offer PSATs for our sophomores and our Juniors and the reason why we offer it for our sophomores is to really get that AP potential list building so we can really see are are you are you a student that might not realize that you might have an AP offering or you might not you might not even realize that in yourself and we have the data to say I think you should you should push yourself and you should really work towards it um the the last thing I don't want to see is a student their senior year taking 5 AP classes because I feel like they that Avalanche is always behind them their senior year
101right as they're trying to build up those those AP courses so we want to spread those out as for our students as much as possible Mr Nunes thank you thank you Mr chairman uh couple of couple of questions uh you were talking about the English the additional English right Reading Writing classes type of deal you know do you have an idea how many you need how many students you need to run or is that been thought about I mean do you get five do you need five do you need 10 five would not be the number um no that's what I'm saying I I I don't like putting a number on something in a sense of like I don't want to be like held like you said 14 or whatever and we run it cuz
102we might have have an offering at 14 or we might not it really comes down to what the schedule can build and and and is there availability for it um we we we really play with it but we we do want to see o over a a decent percentage of our students in in a comfortable side we don't want our schedule to be loged in because we're running a class at 5: if we have to yeah go ahead and we also will look at the core content graduation requirements so English n English 10 the advanced placement courses and we will look at those courses first as the priority and how many sections do we need what's the amount of students because if we have as an example AP Literature and we have 35 students wanting
103the course we are going to run two sections of that so that might result in us not being able to offer electives so again the core content graduation requirements are our first priority and then if there are spots we look at the electives okay good uh thank you for the number of the AP classes I know I always enjoy listening to you know the discussion on it do we know how many of our students are taking AP classes offand I don't but I can get you the number I know um Ross has done uh Dr TBO I apologize has done a lot of work to build those numbers up for our students um I I don't want to give you the percentage I think I have number in my head but I don't but I
104will get you that number I promise so um but it is a significant percentage of our poity population enjoy looking at you know as a scholarship chairman for a different organization enjoy looking at all the transcripts and seeing you know Johnny and suszie you know got 15 30 credit you know blown out a semester and then some the beautiful thing about our offering is is it it we we try to hit all of the modalities of learning right so we have the AP is one side we have the AP Computer Science we have the AP maths and we have the AP like those those social sciences you know so we really tried to hit all of those different types of Learners um which offers which does expand our potential of students that can have it
105right I could have never tooken AP Art Studio but I definitely took AP chem when I was back here so yeah that's it and the last uh nice to see the uh Sports officials and and such you know yeah I agree it's getting harder and harder to get officials and you know tough job but is that done here or the students going out and when is is it is it like an after school thing type no we have two sections U Miss seus runs it um it's part online part in action so they'll do some of the online work that's like the the quote unquote ref reps program that we use and the other side is actually living it so you might like um you might watch a soccer match or you might watch something
106from the lens of a a um an official yeah do they like when the boys you know if they were studying to be basketball officials would they per say be at a a practice to you know take an idea as to what it looks like you know almost like real time it's more in the PE classes that they use it for um they use that time because it's it is during the school day I love that idea and I might kind of help support that I'm I'm sure either coach Jaber or coach Simonetti would actually love that extra support on their courts as well too so I I definitely think there's some offerings there okay thank you no I'm good Mr chairman thank you thank you Mr much appreciated Sam Mor I don't know the
107benefit or the curse of going last is that every question is answered Haley so eloquently uh tapped into my question Rel that you responded to related to course selection and um academic planning so thank you for that um and then I I guess I just have a a I just appre one thing I will say that I just appreciate is that we do have a a uh pathway for students to um take a World Language every year that they're here um i' love to expand that list I know we've had other languages and that comes with its own its own uh difficulties um but I do appreciate that there is a pathway for that for all four years so I don't have any other questions thank you thank you I'll just add a great presentation
108what I really appreciate um from you and your team Mr Shay is the the student piece right the student that you're you're listening you mentioned I don't know if it was you or Bridget that mentioned that you're you're listening to students that have gone through Dartmouth High School graduated and coming back they're in college now and they're saying hey wait a minute you should be I think it was art too right for for architectural students that this is something that really should be offered at the high school level um so to me I think that's huge the the students voice I think is huge and and I'm glad to see that uh you and your team are are listening to that and listening to that piece because I think it'll go a long way um
109to uh growing our our Pathways not just the pathways program but growing our um you know all of our programs especially it's it's amazing to me the AP offerings for sure my my daughter is actually hoping to graduate a semester early even though she only had six six or nine credits I think she was able to transfer those in and that's she's a couple of summer classes and she'll be able to graduate a semester early because of those Z classes that she took here at Dartmouth High School so um no um I'm I'm very happy with with the uh momentum uh that's going on here at Dartmouth High School and I think uh I speak for my colleagues when I say well done um and I think right now all we need at this point
110is a vote uh for the um not so much the program of studies but for the graduation requirements questions on that no good all right whenever you're ready okay nope that's fine I rolls off your tongue rolls off your tongue yes it is I was just going to say yeah okay make a make a motion we approve the uh graduation requirements as presented uh for the u under the program of studies second than you motion by Mr n second by Miss Coughlin on the motion any discussion J hering none all in favor I opposed motion carries unanimous ly thank you both for your presentation I do want to say thank you to our lead teachers as well um Bridget meets with each one of them individually and and really they they you talk about the
111feedback they get the feedback from the staff they get the feedback from the students that's where it all begins and it's it's it's a real true collaborative process and Bridget's got a really great system that works for this so um it's it's it's a labor of love for a lot of people and I appreciate all everyone that helped put this together I just get to talk about it everyone else gets to do all the hard work on it so thank you everyone for the vote and I appreciate every that worked on this document thank you thank you [Applause] both U moving right along next up under old business proposed FY 26 budget some further discussion um not sure if I should should I turn it right over to I think I I'll just Dr s
112magu yes that would be great thank you so much first I just want to say thank you to everybody who came out tonight um and spoke about the budget I mean these are real issues that we as a community a school Community certainly but a community at large are facing and we're facing it together and having folks come out and make the statements that you're making are not only true and in support of the work that we do every day but very much appreciated and so I want to start out by just saying thanks for coming out because it really is a lousy night out there and so uh we appreciate you showing up so multiple perspectives on the town's budget and our shared Financial challenge and we all heard about that this evening School
113costs do in do um continue to rise and we have acknowledge that that this puts pressure on our Town's resources however I think we should be really clear the issue is not that our spending is out of line the issue is that our costs are increasing and that is due to factors that are truly beyond our control Rising special education expenses State mandates increasing Transportation costs and the competitive need to retain yes retain our quality Educators our are driving our budget pressures these are not discretionary choices they are necessary investments in our students and the required obligations under state and federal law every school district in Massachusetts right now is facing the same challenges we recognize that funding is limited and we remain committed to working collaboratively with the town to find responsible and Sustainable
114Solutions but we also must ensure Dartmouth students receive the education that they deserve and that's what we've heard other folks come up and speak about this evening this underfunding our schools has long-term consequences not just for our students but for this entire Community including property values and including economic growth this is not just a school department problem it is a townwide discussion about priorities and how we invest in dness future we welcome open dialogue as we did this evening and collaboration as we work together toward a solution and I know tonight Mr Kylie is going to present and talk about um some of the uh challenges and also sort of the collaboration that we have on an ongoing basis here in town thank you Dr sa Maguire um while Mr gashaw puts up um what
115I'm going to talk about I I think in um your comments tonight I think one common thread was to try and figure out a way that um we could have a sustainable um budget pattern moving forward one one thing came up on uh at the March 6th finance committee meeting that um was interesting um we in our budget process have talked about the idea of trying to gradually lessen Reliance on um reserves and particularly our school choice reserves which we're really using to to balance our budget um but that night at the finance committee um a finance committee member brought up that topic and um made a statement about potentially finding a way to to do that so in the spirit of that um I created this scenario in which we essentially string out school
116choice reserves but that it would require the town to commit an additional amount of money to us um over the next 5 years so in order to find a way to match school choice expenditures with school choice revenues we would need the town to commit to fund our our school budget an additional $245,000 a year for the next five years so each year over and above our regular operat budget we would need $245,000 additional that would result and I know the it's kind of hard to see on the screen but excuse me Mr gashaw could we maybe zoom in on that slide a little bit I I see a lot of squinting eyes even my own but what it shows is that after the years all of the additional costs over and above $700,000 would
117have been reincorporated into the Dartmouth Public Schools operating budget and then um after that five years the approximate level of expenditure in the school choice program would be somewhere around $700,000 which is um consistent with our Revenue in that program so by by thinking about an increase of $245,000 which is about 24% of the town's overall budget we could solve the salary situation and the summer and after school program situation in which we are funding uh using one-time resources in school choice um it doesn't mean that it's going to solve all our problems it does mean that if this were considered uh by the town it would solve one problem one pretty big problem which was created by the Esser Cliff um that's resulting in other communities laying off staff right now um some of
118our other South Coast communities and throughout the state there communities that are laying off staff because there isn't a source of funding anymore that can support them um the positions that they added know we were fortunate that we had some school choice reserves and were able to do that you know thoughtfully and spend those but um obviously we know that that's not sustainable long term unless the town we willing to try and solve a problem um so the only other Sol way that I can figure out solving this problem is either via an override or cutting staff so for a 0.24% budget increase budget um increase for the town it would seem that it would be logical to at least have this conversation as a possible solution um so that's that was this was shared
119with the finance committee member who um who brought it up um and I've also shared it with interim Town Administrator Gary Carrero um and I think that uh there's been an interest in hearing what the school committee thinks about this idea uh as a potential solution um and then there may be some further consideration at the Town level for this so well thank you for bringing this to to our attention Mr Kylie and for uh the finance committee member for bringing this up and sharing it and taking the initiative so C certainly appreciate uh just just a couple of thoughts of my own and then I'll turn it over to my colleagues first of all I do want to recognize uh those of you who spoke this evening uh in regards to um class sizes
120and class sizes especially at the elementary level uh you know you know increasing uh up towards that 24 uh Mark uh I agree um I'm only from I'm only speaking um on my behalf I'm not speaking uh for anyone else in the committee but I think that uh class sizes at the elementary level of 24 is too high um I really do um I I I would love to see average class sizes of TW of 18 to 20 especially depending on those grade levels um there's no doubt about it um however the financial reality is I don't know how we would come up with um the money to you know get those class sizes to where they need to be across the district because while we're reducing some some FTE and some schools um to
121really what we're doing is where correct me if I'm wrong anyone we're we're averaging out across the district for Equitable P for equality purposes that all that all of our elementary schools are averaging the same numbers because in my opinion it's certainly not fair to have one school in one end of the town have more an average class size that's higher than schools at the other end of the town but if it if I could have it my way I would have 18 to 20 um you know depending on the uh the grade level for sure so so I certainly uh I hear I hear those comments I respect those comments I wish I really really wish we could do something with that um I do know based on where we are in um ESP
122spending in the district we are 1.1 or 1.2 uh below the state average on what we're um hiring for FTE for esps um that's a problem I think we could be doing more to support our classroom teachers absolutely um it's just where is the money going to come from we we know that smaller class sizes and that extra class support through these um ESP educational support professionals makes a difference but it comes down to what does this community want and if we want to get together and if we want to do an override at some point um I think I think that that's where we may have to go but I think the solution that Mr Kylie uh has put forward at least uh helps with the deficit and not relying so much really takes
123us takes our our Reliance off of school choice over the next through you know uh fy3 will ultimately be off of it because when I voted in school choice 10 years ago now or whenever it was I Envision school choice being that mechanism to fund those after school buses at the elementary level level that we still don't have to fund all the extra things that the school department can't get into to its operating budget and I never intentioned school choice to be providing 11 right now 11 FTE worth of salaries so I'm hoping through Progressive dialogue with Town Leaders with elected Leaders with appointed officials that we can make some Headway but I think moving forward would we need an override at the end of the day um but I do like I do like
124this solution I think a gradual um pullback from school choice is probably the right way to go um and if we can get the support of the finance committee um in the select board um you know and if Gary our interim Town Administrator can make it work I I think that would certainly be the way to go I will also say that um after thinking about it and running the numbers and looking at the comps I personally um based on all of the the cuts that we're looking to make I cannot support a um $120,000 human resource position director at this time this District certainly needs one I have there's no doubt about that I do know that the town is um bringing someone on soon I did have a conversation uh with Mrs Heidi
125Brooks um and you know I'm not uh in the operations I'm only in policy and budget but I'd love to see some kind of collaboration between this school department and uh the town with an HR position at this time though um it's certainly needed uh we're very fortunate to have who we have uh doing what we doing what they do in uh Human Resources but I cannot I cannot conscious consciously uh approve that kind of salary when we're cutting FTE so I'll turn it over to my colleagues anyone that wants to go want me to start I I just I I don't disagree with you I actually agree with everything you said I think this is is one mechanism to sort of Nar down I my computer died and so I note to self use
126Google and I can open my phone and use my Google but I was working on a Word document tallying up all the wonderful quotes and really important messages that folks said during the public hearing um you know one in particular was that school choice you know is the closest thing to be that that um rainy day fund or to you know and it certainly um getting away from funding those staff positions is important it's really critical um you know over and over my head you know we're here because of students we're here to make decisions um based on what's important to us in our community um and thinking about you know makes me think about the larger Community needs to really sit with what kind of a community do we want in the future do
127we want one that uh supports and values education less um I certainly don't want that to be the my community in the future I certainly am here for all students um and I do appreciate Mr Kylie for taking um I didn't mean to point anyone out in the crowd but uh one good good idea um to make this work and to to um get ourselves to a point where we're not relling on that on those funds and that they can be used for uh some other uh important initiatives that have you know been put on the back burner as a result so um that's my that's all I have to say right now thank you thank you Mrs saml Mr NOS thank you Mr chairman uh yeah I had a conversation with uh Mr Kylie
128about this when he showed it to me and I you know wholeheartedly support it you know when you think about it it's uh 459 almost 1 point to you know over the next five years type of deal when it rolls up uh um it takes the pressure uh off the school choice and not uh you know exhausted type of deal again we all know that you know this this is something that runs every year school choice it's a vote every year so it it you know it could be here today and gone tomorrow and then we'd really be in trouble but uh I mean the other thing too it's you know and in this I know I've said this before and the kind you know take something from the state I mean we're $9 million
129less than uh State average type of deal I mean God if you took a third of that okay be $3 million and all of these wonderful little issues that we have are gone type of deal uh you know I had a discussion with a a state senator a while back and you know his comment to me was well there's nothing I can do about it you need to talk to this rep this state senator type of deal so it's like okay fine I haven't seen that person to to talk to him but when I catch him I will bend his ear I assure you of that but I think this my only concern my only concern with this and I think this is great and thinking about it and everything else is you know are
130we putting a Band-Aid on the problem okay are we just okay stick you know it's a fair point just my just my thoughts as I put my governmental and accounting background hat on type of deal and unfortunately to disagree with you I think we need the HR person that's all I have at the moment thank you democracy thank you yes Mary Mrs Beckman you can say Mary I mean I think this is I think we should look at this as a start and um and also what we're willing to do as a school department for the town and then ask the town what they're willing to do um but I I do think this is a start um um I I am one of the big supporters of an HR person I think it protects
131everyone employees um the district I think it lowers risk um but I think I'm going to agree with um Mr chair and um say maybe we look at that again next year scof thank you um so I love this idea um no it doesn't solve all our problems um but it makes them smaller it makes the cliff smaller when we get there um but in listening to comments earlier tonight I agree with most of them you know class size um you know getting rid of teachers whether it's bi attrition or what it's not good um I agree our benefits packet isn't that great I do disagree about Administration costs rising and that being at odds with everything else I our Administration costs are 33% lower than average so yes people have gotten raises but we're
132still way below average um I do believe that we have all kinds of requests that are unmet that are actually needs um but I feel that it would be irresponsible to put those items in our current budget because right now the town cannot afford it they can afford this I believe and I hope that they see that they can afford this um but in order to budget for the requests that we can't meet I think a and to to keep the teacher student ratio at a healthy level to keep class sizes smaller we will need an override but we can't put those items in our budget until the town has the money so if we have as a town believe that small class sizes are important if we as a town believe that um our
133teachers and um other school staff deserve better benefits other Town employees deserve better benefits um we need to First Tax ourselves more and when I first came on the school board all I heard was this town will not pass an override so I think everyone has been very timid about it um but since I've been here I have heard from the people who think the town will pass an override so um to wrap all that up I hope that the town will incorporate this into our budget um I think that because of where are where we are financially we should put off getting an HR person um I think it's a responsible budget that we are putting forward thank you everyone for the uh wellth thought out uh discussion I guess my question to Dr
134s Maguire Mr Kylie is um next STS if this is something that sounds like the committee um would be willing to entertain approving a budget uh with the reduction with the $245,000 reduction out of school choice and uh with that money going into the operating budget I guess uh a little caveat with that and this is just me um spitballing here is I'm going to go back to the fact that school choice is was for ex originally for extras for our rainy day fund I don't want to see a scenario next year that we desperately need a one-on-one ESP or we desperately need fa uh staff to help our students whether that's you know we have a student that comes into the district that was unexpected that that has needs and and you know we're
135we're putting off uh hiring an an educational support professional or one-on-one because of money I don't want to hear that especially when we have this money in school choice I would rather us spend the money in school choice right at the time it's needed than to defer a position that is desperately needed at the classroom level and you you understand I guess what I'm what I'm saying is that the money is available there um especially if we can get the $245,000 a of school choice please please please if the money is available in a position is desperately needed that's what the money's there for support I want to make sure that and I have no doubt we're not I don't but I want to make sure we are supporting our classroom teachers and supporting our
136educators first and foremost um so and if we have to do that you know and use it out of school choice in 26 then the 27 budget we roll that into the budget because we have that issue and say Here's why we have to have that agreed I guess from my perspective I just want the administration to know that I I think that I'm I'm speaking for myself and correct me if I'm wrong from anyone else that that money is there if you you need it use it to support students understood so next steps Mr Kylie well I think that um the interim Town Administrator would really as I said did want to hear from the school committee and what um you know what the plan was from us so I think I'll communicate that
137tomorrow morning okay and um ask that um there's consideration from finance committee select board to support this we normally would vote our budget school committee would vote our budget at the next school committee meeting so there's not a lot of time between now and then now technically we could make a change or vote we could make a change to our budget right up at until town meeting um obviously we want the correct ideally the correct number to be on the schedule a and in the in the town meeting warrant so there's some timing issues there but I but I think it all starts with having a conversation tomorrow and trying to move this forward and seeing um you know how that works out so okay Mr chairman yes Mr new would it help if there
138was a motion that we accepted this revision and he when he makes the presentation to uh Mr Carrero and it gets funneled down they can say this is right it would per se vers it being a consensus it was a vote but we haven't approved the initial budget right no no no no no this schedu the the use of school choice okay y the the the adjustment the adjustment on the school choice do you think that would that would sure can't hurt yeah they can't hurt at all Mr chairman make a motion that uh we approve the uh adjustments to school choice um as presented by Mr Kylie uh using $245,000 rolled up the next six years as presented second motion by Mr noon second by Mrs Amaral do we have that motion we all
139in favor I opposed motion carries unanimously thank you for that no problem and and I think uh just to close up here I think that we do need an override I think we need to look at what we truly need in this District maybe it's coming together with a group um I'm not sure what the answer is uh that's something I can talk about with the administration but I think ultimately we do need an override in this town and it sounds like there's growing support for it so thank you all I should have all right next up superintendent update Dr to saber Maguire so um I just wanted to share with the committee that I had the opportunity to attend the 2025 aasa National Conference which is a conference that brings together uh superintendant and
140school leaders really from across the country and I find that to be really validating in that with the issues that and the challenges we're facing here in Massachusetts I would say that uh there are similar challenges going on across the entire country and just having that opportunity to talk with colleagues at that level has been is really important for me and when I think about you know what do you go to conferences for will you go to connect your work to the work of your school district and some of the things that I was able to spend time in um learn about and attend sessions on were connected to health and wellness student well-being um there was a session that I think is really important for us as we have these kind of discussions and
141it's about um one session on restoring Trust restoring public trust and education and so those conversations are happening across the country and those are the kinds of sessions that I along with um other colleagues were able to attend there was quite a bit of focus on AI um really interesting in the way that superintendents and school districts and teachers are using AI in a way that's productive and actually helping them in their work um there was a session on strategic planning that myself and my team were going to meet with a group to talk about not that we haven't already obviously engaged in strategic planning but one of the things we're looking toward is how are we going to be able to articulate clear clearly to the committee and to the community what our progress
142is toward meeting the uh goals and objectives in a way that's really clear for folks who are interested in our progression of the initiatives that we've identified there was a session on just building stakeholder buyin again really timely for the kinds of conversations that we're having here this evening um so if we enter if the community enters into dialogue around uh an eventual override there is going to need to be a a real effort around how you organize around um buying uh buying stakeholder put to to make sure that you're you have a plan in place in order to do that um so next I'm going to invite uh Dr tbolt up because he's going to talk to you about there's so much going on he had given me a list of talking points for
143what's happening at the 612 level and I invited him up to have this discussion with the committee himself thank you Dr Sabre Maguire and sure absolutely so I just have to say that Haley stole quite a bit of what I was planning to talk about so thank you hay but while I was standing back there with Mr Rossy he did say he you know gets a kick out of how young people use their phones to give updates which I never do but I haven't had a chance to print this so I will today as well so um the first piece I just wanted to share was um our high school math pilot is continuing on March 6 and 7th uh Carnegie um coach was here uh and engaged in a lesson study protocol with uh
144several of our Math teachers where they came in and on the Thursday they co-planned together and on the Friday they co-taught the lesson the the teacher and the math coach from Carnegie um also met with our lead teacher Mr laow and uh that plan um that professional development and support is just part of the plan to support this pilot it will continue in a couple of weeks when the coach returns once again um and also we'll be um having uh some teams visit districts that are a little bit further ahead in implementation of Carnegie math um and the idea there is hopefully to provide teachers opportunities to talk with other teachers who have lived this experience and can kind of hear you know what um you know the struggles that they went through and how
145they came through the other side and how it is working uh for them so that's that's ongoing work um haey mentioned the tedex DHS event which was phenomenal hopefully uh everyone got to see some of it but it really that's a tremendous event that every year uh Mrs Souza and Mrs true um organize and do a tremendous amount of work and they certainly deserve um you know a shout out um but also want to highlight the partnership between the dhsv media production program that you know streams the event live and also DCTV that partnership is invaluable to our school provides tremendous opportunities for our secondary students as well the nas collaborative visit took place uh over March 13th and 14th and afterwards they debriefed with Mrs Larsson who served as the chair of the nas
146collaborative uh visit um in the self-study process and again a lot of credit to her she was tremendous in organizing uh and leading all of the work also um you know a lot of credit to our faculty most folks don't understand all of the work that goes into a nask visit and it's done by the Educators who are in the building who um collect evidence they review it they review the standards for Nas and they they produce a self-study report the collaborative visiting team was made up of six Educators from across the Commonwealth they came in and um pretty much validated the work that the d uh darmouth High School faculty had had done um and they did um share before they left and there'll be a formal report but they shared with Mr Shay
147uh Mrs lson and um the rest of the administrative team here at the high school they shared some strengths and they included things like our students um the team interacted with our students in a number of ways both through formal interviews as well as through student Le Tours when they were here over the two-day um visit and they could not stop talking enough about how impressive our students were how courteous they were how informative they were um and so that uh that's always nice to hear um high quality instruction that takes place in the building was cited as uh strength as well so again that's credit to our to our teachers and our educators um another strength was structures that support that high quality instruction including things like common planning time built into the master
148schedule as well as the pace period um were highlighted um they also highlighted building infrastructure and funding for for the uh in infrastructure improvements um they specifically noted the um recently redesigned and revamped LMC um also they cited as a strength that TV media Studio talking about how it was you know professional uh quality um and again provides our students with a tremendous experience they also cited as you heard from Mr Shay and Mrs D Silva today uh as a strength the V the variety of offerings that we have not just for the 27 AP programs but again the the clubs and activities that we have after school the Athletics the music programs our Atlas program was cited as a strength um as well as our unified program so really you know I think that
149the visit from the nas team was um and should be viewed as very validating they also identified before they left some uh recommended areas for us to focus on as we continue to improve our our school in our school community that included things like um you know utilizing the dmouth high school student handbook to facilitate clear expectations and transparent communication around expectations for students um they recommended that continue to um work around curriculum development and revision and to ensure alignment to the newly developed portrait of a learner um finally uh developing they recommended developing a common grading practice um with clear cost Expectations by Department um so that departments have consistent um grading practices um and then finally um they recommended to revisit and revise the comprehensive Emergency Management plan to ensure it's a document
150that's user friendly and consistently updated and so I share these because again even with the recommended areas for growth I find it validating because a number of those things are highlighted in our strategic plan as well as the school Improvement plan that Mr Shay presented a few meetings ago that was approved so I think it just validates the work that's ongoing and that's already in process and I think that that will be helpful as we continue to drive uh Improvement efforts at the high school level um another update I want to provide was Dartmouth Middle School just had an author visit last week it was tremendous um the author was Dusty bowling who's an award-winning bestselling author of insignificant events in the life of a cactus momentous momentous events in the life of a cactus
151um 24 hours in nowhere and several other uh books as well but it was great to visit um Dr Sabre Maguire uh was with me when we visited um just to see the energy the author presented to each grade level sixth 7th and eth separately but she also met in small groups with uh students who had the opportunity to purchase one of her books one or more of her books and and have autographs and really to talk to the author beyond that the just the message of perseverance was one that should really resonate with our students as she talked about how many times she was um rejected for a book idea over I think she said over a hundred times it was 100 times before she was finally uh approved for book so the final
152piece um again a shout out to Mrs Souza uh our world language Lead Teacher we have um upcoming World Language PD um Regional uh it's a regional PD event for uh Portuguese teachers um finding content specific professional development is always a challenge particularly in roal language um but this is the third year now in a row where we'll host dmouth High School Host uh PD re Al for Portuguese um teachers from from across the Commonwealth and again Mrs soua Works closely with the Portuguese consulate to make that um available at no cost to our to our Educators so um we're tremendously proud of that as well I think that's it thank you Dr T I told you we had a lot to share yes we've been very busy um so just moving on to budget
153Capital Improvement in HR I think that we've um we've talked enough about budget for this evening and we can put Capital Improvement for our next meeting but I did want to mention to you as far as in our HR world uh the interviews for assistant principles at the Potter and the Quinn and the assoc interviews for the associate principles at the middle and the high school are ongoing as a matter of fact I think the first rounds are all done as of this afternoon um I can't again I I can't thank folks enough because this has been a lot of hard work and our educators are part of the process and I thank them for giving up their time um certainly uh Katie and Ross along with Peter Rossy Ryan Shay audre Thomas Melissa McKenry
154all of them are part of this process but also we have a good number of teachers who have been part of this first round and so we're looking forward to hopefully completing um some of the final interviews by the end of this week and should be ready to share some candidates or some of the um folks that have been selected for the positions really within the next week and you know I'm always going to give this Shameless plug for monitor substitute teachers esps I don't think we need any custodians right now fully the first yes so that's pretty amazing we're we're excited about that um I'm going to Echo what Haley talked about as far as family under family and Community engagement and just talk about dartmouth's finest competition uh which was really an incredible
155Showcase of student Talent school spirit and Community engagement because there's the community engagement piece um Beyond just our students the place was truly packed and I'll tell you the crowd was really into the performances um I don't know if you've gotten a chance to see it if you were there um wonderful if not you should maybe um check it out on DCTV because I did watch some of the clips because I had to share some of that with uh some of my colleagues who weren't able to attend and it was really incredibly fun I mean we saw music we heard music saw dance and there was a wrestling match and it was a very realistic wrestling match to the point where as a superintendent I was sitting in the audience enjoying it and at the
156same time dreading it and wishing that it was over I mean um there was a performance of uh Greenman group so for those of you who are familiar with Blue Man Group we had students who performed and they were incredibly believable and I have a feeling if the uh producers of of Blue Man Group saw our students they might actually recruit them to perform it was just hysterical um but really the level of talent was extraordinary kids from just all different um you know different backgrounds up there on stage and when you hear them share with you what the importance of that experience was in bringing together folks that they might not normally interact with it was pretty powerful uh so I I loved it um I thought it was just it was so much
157fun and so if you haven't watched it yet please go ahead and take a look at DCTV it's worth your time u under safe and supportive schools I just uh highlight the work being done being led by Kim redlon she has reestablished the district and in turn what will be school-based crisis teams uh we're looking forward to really putting those teams in place in a way that we can see that there are consistent uh they just consistent Pro processes and procedures in place and she has been bringing groups together uh to get to put that work into place and she'll be sharing some of the outcomes of her work at some uh upcoming meetings M Dr TBO already talked about Nas but I will say I did have the opportunity to talk to a couple
158of the interview interviewers and they really did highlight our students and just uh folks one person who's been I think he said at over a hundred neas visits I don't know how many he said but it was close to that and he said that he uh this he had never uh met a group of kids kids who were just so incredibly engaging and that he was incredibly impressed by what the their display of school pride and their respect for one another and just the overall atmosphere here at dth high school so that was pretty impressive to hear um and we look forward to getting the report final report and sharing it with the committee great so thank you busy couple of weeks thank you Dr sah so next up report of the chair just have
159a couple of things I have a letter here dated March 17th from uh superintendent Michael Watson of the be uh Vocational School uh letting us know that uh dartmouth's reps uh Dr Cindy Marlin uh her term is up May 1st of 2025 and she is uh seeking uh reappointment so I would just ask that this get put on to the next uh school committee agenda for consideration and I believe correct me if I'm wrong uh Mr Nunes that this is a is this a joint appointment or this this is it's it's the the chairman of the school committee chairman of the board of Selectmen and the town moderator perfect so I'm I don't see I don't see a CC on this that it was cc to the other two individuals um but I will certainly
160uh reach out to the select board and our town moderator um but I I I know typically this committee will take a vote um has been past practice and not just the school committee chair saying yes yes or it's a vote of per se each one and you know then the chair and the three get together and hopefully it's all perfect perfect so if we could just add this to the next school committee agenda miss gner that would be great and I will reach out um to find out or just put uh the select board and the town moderator on notice if they hadn't received this um I would also like to see I don't think we've had our our annual meeting with our reps and uh Mr Watson from new Beford voke I'm very
161curious about the admission policy uh the updated admission policy at new Beford voke um it is my understanding that it's really just a complete lottery now um and that it's all three communities uh New Bedford Fair Haven and Dartmouth um that just get put in and it's a complete lottery my thing is is that there should be a certain amount of slots allotted to dmouth students there should be a certain amount of slots allotted to for Haven students because New Bedford is quite large compared to the the towns of fa Haven and Dartmouth so my concern is that Dartmouth students are not going to have a fair share at getting admitted education at a vocational education when you have when you just put them into one pot and you have I don't know tens of
16210,000 students that are uh currently enrolled in your Bedford public schools and how many of those are eighth graders that want to go to new be voke so I just think think it creates an unfair Advantage so I would love to hear from them yeah so I don't know if we can reach out to our um our new beit voke reps and see if we can get them on the schedule uh for one of our next meetings and that's all I have this is Amaral well I have some good news we love good news um well it's good news to me and good news for the community um so I as everyone knows probably sick of hearing I have had the fortune um of each year being voted in and chairing the Dartmouth special ed
163parent advisory Council since I think 1962 no uh uh since 2012 I wasn't going to say anything and uh it has been a pleasure it aligned really nicely uh with my um most of that time with my professional role that at one point had more flexibility than I have now um and I have a a three children in my child that brought me to work in the field and also um sign up for this role uh is aging out of the school system uh he will um2 January uh he will be turning 22 which is for students who do need that entitlement until then uh we we call it a cliff it's another Cliff um I'm preparing for it for years won't talk about the federal updates of the government but um neither here nor
164there I received an email out of the blue early March from someone who thought perhaps they wanted more information about stepping into the role uh that I resigned preco um but remained in because I am passionate about the work um and so I am happy to uh so I reviewed our bylaws and talked with our special ed uh leadership and this person who poor thing I've already connected her to my Statewide contacts I have her on a list serve so I don't know if she realizes what she signed up for uh but I'm here to share this can be found I think on the backpack that on April 10th the um meeting notice has gone out that I April 10th 6:00 at Quinn in the community room we will have a um a meeting um
165specifically I reviewed the bylaws because there's somebody interested in the vacancy get it while the getting's good um uh this person there will be a vote for this person um who then will be able to run with it work with the school department update the bylaws and then I would assume in late spring hold a larger sort of um election for all of the seats um Deb August she's a Treasurer she's been a Treasurer she's been part of this as long as I have and um so reinstalling her or and anyone else who's interested and and it's a great opportunity for parents to learn um collaborate with the school department um learn about special education so I'll be doing a little presentation on uh I need readers to uh the purpose and the role of
166a CPAC as it's written in Mass General law um and then we'll have uh networking opportunity um Refreshments some welcome remarks from our our special ed leadership and uh then a nomination and a vote to fill that board chair vacancy um and then a meeting close so April 10th 6:00 Quinn school be there or B Square thank you thank you Mrs Mr NES yeah thank you Mr chairman uh funny you were talking about the be voke and I had it as one of I I can't remember the last time we saw minutes so can we again you know I'm not trying to hop on a dead beat a dead horse but it would be nice to you know see the minutes from uh greater newed voke type of deal so absolutely standard times is starting
167to and or it has been representing uh student athletes for fall Sports and such and uh our boy soccer player was uh the super superstar of the year so congratulations there congrats and I don't normally mention names but congrats to uh cat cheeseboro for uh her over 2,000 points that she's sced I was lucky enough to be here both for uh that game and and some of the other ones Unfortunately they they lost that night to Whitman Hansen uh but also twoo for winning the Dave cowens award as the outstanding female player so that's that was good there uh this coming week this coming Saturday our color guide both uh JV and vity competing up in Salem for uh the nesba finals uh our colag guard leaves uh next Tuesday uh febru uh April 1st
168uh for Dayton for WGI F long trip uh the percussion leaves on the 9th and uh the nesba finals for percussion is uh the uh next not this coming Saturday but the following Saturday uh here at the high school uh starting at 1:00 and uh dth is on at 6:30 and the awards are done at 7:30 so that's what's going on in music and everything else right now thank you very much for your update Mr news anyone else that is all I have next regular scheduled meeting of the Dartmouth school committee is scheduled for Monday April 14th at 6: PM in the Dartmouth High School library media center which is right here at this time chair will entertain a motion to adjourn into to Executive session pursuant to Mass General Law chapter 30A section 21
169A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining where an open meeting would have a detrimental effect on the school committee's bargaining position Dartmouth administrators Association and Dartmouth Educators Association in addition pursuant to Mass General Law chapter 38 section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to litigation where an open meeting would have a detrimental effect on the school committee's bargaining position not to reconvene into Open session so moved second motion by Mr nun second by Miss Beckwith on the motion forther discussion roll call please Kathleen ameral yes John nun yes Mary beckwood yes best Coughlin yes Chris Oliver yes meeting is adjourned have a wonderful night everyone [Music] s